Monday, December 13, 2010

100 Words for Snow



Photo of snow plow at local school taken at 7.30am this morning. Still dark, and the days now are very short.
Legend says the Inuit have over 100 words for snow. Whether it’s true or not I don’t know, but the boys are learning that there are different types of snow.

We are having our first real snow fall. It started Saturday evening with a freezing rain.


Yesterday we had sleet all day. Not fun! When the temperature is hovering around freezing, you get a mixture of snow and ice. As the day progressed, it turned into a wet snow that resembled a proper snow on the surface, but was soggy underneath.

The boys had waited all day for some decent snow, and about 8:00 pm last night they could wait no longer and got their sleds to try the snow out. It was very pretty, Christmas lights, snow falling, street lights illuminating on the snow. There were my kids, the only ones, trying to sled down a slushy hill and going really really slow. Kids that have grown up in Canada know to wait for the better quality snow. You know, that powdery sort of snow that everyone loves. They had fun, and know that soon they will get better quality snow. Besides, you can always throw snowballs at Mom.

The first sound I heard this morning about 6:00 am was a scraping sound. I looked outside the window, and my street was a hive of activity with a little snow plow shovelling the sidewalk, and the salt men, and it was still snowing. The car was covered in a white blanket.


Last week everyone else got a lot of snow, Buffalo, and even London, which is 1 hour west of here. London got a couple of snow days. Kids are so excited to have their first snow day. Double bonus! You get the day off school, and you get to play in the snow all day – how wonderful is that!


I didn’t think the school board would cancel today, since this is only the 1st snowfall and I don’t think it’s that heavy.


We checked the school board website anyway and the site said “decision pending” check back at 6:30. When we checked back the site said there would be school today, so, no luck yet kids.


Temperature is -11C (12F), but with a wind chill it feels like -23C (-9F).
Florida comparison, today 7C (42F) and cloudy so it’s not warm there today either.

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